Why your online reputation as a business is so important and how to avoid a bad rep

The internet is one of the most used tools in the world. If you have a business be it online or not, it´s extremely likely that there is some information online regarding it. You can run your company as well as you like but it is possible that someone has something bad to say about it, be it a disgruntled ex-employee or in some cases a competitor. Take a look at the reasons why your online reputation is so important and some ways on how you can combat having a bad rep.

Your company will probably be googled

Be it by a potential supplier, partner, employee or customer, there is a huge possibility that people are going to search your company on a search engine. This, in some cases will be the first impression you make on these people, and it’s important that it is a good impression. It´s a situation we find ourselves in life sometimes, like if you meet someone for the first time and you have been informed of some of the terrible things they have done, it´s difficult to get along with them from that point onwards, even though the things you heard could be untrue. Using a form of reputation management is a great to avoid vicious information from appearing to users searching the company.

A good online reputation can boost sales and confidence in your company

Much like the above point, first impressions are important in the success of the business. Taking an online market trader for example, before buying any product from them, I check out their rating, if their rating is not in the 98% and up (2% tolerance because it’s obvious with thousands of sales that one or two problems could have occurred) then I quite simply do not buy the product, no matter how good of a deal it is. Many clients will take this exact same attitude before dealing with a company in any way, having a good online reputation is a great way to boost your business in all kinds of ways.

Giving them a reason

If you are running a company poorly then getting a bad reputation online is bound to happen. Making sure that your company is running smoothly at all times is how you can avoid getting a bad reputation online. Listening to your clients and employees is a great way to keeping all parties happy, and if something goes sour, address it immediately and I the best possible way in order to upset no one. A good example of handling something badly was a certain national airline this year who had their reputation smashed by treating a client badly which went viral over the internet and gave them a terrible reputation. Had they handled the situation in a correct and client friendly manner they would never have had an issue.

Reading this hopefully you can realise how important an online reputation is to a company is and how to avoid having problems in the future with it. Remember, first impressions are everything!